New Art At The New New Museum. New. (New.)
Proximity, free admission, and a couple of Margaritas made conditions right for me to finally visit the fancypants new New Museum last night. The current four-part exhibit is called Unmonumental.
It cost nothing to get in, but I paid in other ways. Mostly, the art I saw left me feeling old and square. In my head, I repeatedly asked myself either; "this is art?" or more often simply,"what the fuck is this?" I ambled from piece to piece feeling not unlike a confused old man lost at the mall.
On a few occassions, I sensed brilliance, as in Rachel Harrison's Huffy Howler (shown above.) And yes, that is a printout of Mel Gibson from Braveheart at the "head". In fact, I believe it was this very image right here. There, print this out hang it on some shit, and you too can be a cutting-edge artist. Since I know you're interested, other Harrison work can be found here, and here.
This looks like something the side ponytail chick from Napoleon Dynamite would have in her bedroom.
I never realized that all laundry mats were really mini-galleries and my closet was really a vault containing millions.
I thought I saw a few homeless dudes burning this around the corner on Stanton. They must have been artists.
The museum did make me think, however, and maybe that's the point. I wondered what it takes to be a professional artist nowadays. How does one secure a show? With what sort of yardstick is your work measured? As we were coralled out onto The Bowery, my eyes itched from having the wool pulled over them and I envisioned the graduation ceremonies of future MFAs as they are handed with a wink pairs of large, fuzzy dice instead of diplomas.